After the surprise launch of 7mate yesterday, attention now turns to Nine and TEN’s plans for new digital channels.

Nine could similarly rebrand its High Definition channel to chase a new demographic, while TEN’s likely option is to dump ONE SD, the standard definition rebroadcast of its ONE sports.

Media are speculating as to which way Nine may move. The Sydney Morning Herald hints at a possible ‘NineCrime’ channel full of CSI, Cold Case, Without a Trace titles. The Australian suggests it could be a Lifestyle channel. “GEM” has also been registered with IP Australia.

It will need to move fast if it wants to match extra demo points that Seven could carve out from 7mate. In a tight race for network figures it might be enough to fall across the line by year’s end.

A Nine source told TV Tonight it was a matter of public record that Nine has been developing a 2nd multi channel to complement the success of GO!

“GO! absolutely flogs 7TWO across the board in the three key demographics, and beats it on Total People. That’s despite Seven’s claims on launch that 7TWO would quickly surpass GO! It hasn’t gotten within a bull’s roar of that because like their primary channel, 7TWO has ended up relying too heavily on the over 55s to bulk up its Total People figures, at the clear expense of the target demos.

“Mate sounds like at attempt to address that big problem they have, but let’s not forget that Mate was in fact their Plan A last year but shelved in favour of 7TWO, which has lost its way. So Mate is now exhumed and dusted off as some new concept, but as a Plan B.”

Meanwhile media buyers gave 7mate a mixed response.

Peter Horgan, a managing partner of media buyer OMD, said: ”If they get it right then it will bring people in. I am interested.”

Nick Durrant at MindShare, told smh.com.au, ”If you are going to attract young guys then you are going to need programs like The Man Show, which is all about girls on trampolines. They need to be offering something different and it [7Mate] is probably not as single-minded as it needs to be, and I don’t know whether they have the appetite for going down that route.”

Nine told TV Tonight there was no date yet for its new channel, “But it’s close and likely to be an announcement soon.”

“I wanted to call it Dave but everyone said ‘are you joking?’” says David Leckie.

Instead Seven called their new male-skewed channel 7mate.

Presumably nobody thought to ask the same question of that idea.

Dave, of course, mirrors the male-dominated channel in the UK which shows titles like Top Gear, Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Red Dwarf and Bottom.

7Mate, which launches on September 25 with the AFL Grand Final, will aim at young males aged 16-39.

Seven CEO David Leckie says the channel “will take a couple of years to make a good profit” but “it will make a profit in year one”.

Advertising will be sold across Seven media properties via SMG Red Unit.

“Anyone in the marketplace will tell you that James Warburton, Kurt Burnette (network director of sales) and their team do a great job selling television, Yahoo!7 and magazines,” he said.

But the Australian Financial Review says Nine has set a date for the launch of its second digital channel, five or six days before Seven launches 7mate. Rumours on Nine’s channel extend from a crime channel, lifestyle channel or a female-skewed channel possibly called GEM.

However, it still requires 8 weeks notice to be included in the OzTAM panel.

AFR also reports Seven is counting on 7mate to correct the failure of 7TWO to broaden the reach of the Seven brand.

“We are very pleased with 7TWO but we think we can do a lot better by the way. GO and ONE are going very well. We saw an opportunity and we are looking forward to it,” Leckie tells The Australian.

greysfan wrote:Typical Arrogance from Channel 9. They are scared of losing the year to Seven which looks likely with the current figures.

I don’t think that it’s cocky at all. When multi-channelling was in its early stages I recall 10 announcing that TenHD and Seven announced 7HD 1 week later and launched it 2 months before TenHD so they could say they were 1st. Glad Nine turned it on them and I hope Nine3 comes out before the pretty lame “mate”.

As for the figures, I actually said last week that 7 are scared of losing to Nine in demos so they launched what was plan B for there original multi channel in the hope of gaining those demos. They were hit hard by MasterChef. I also predict that The X factor won’t do well in demos, like AGT. It’s gonna be going head to Head with JMC and 2.5Men on Monday, that’s 1 though as slot for demos.

At the end of the day, this does mean more channels for us and hopefully more choice on Free TV so I'm not gonna complain

Nine has had more success than Seven with multi-channeling so this move of launching their channel before Seven could prove to worth it. But Nine really do need to have the right content in order for it to be successful, especially if they want it to help their overall shares by the end of the year.

greysfan wrote:Typical Arrogance from Channel 9. They are scared of losing the year to Seven which looks likely with the current figures.

I don’t think that it’s cocky at all. When multi-channelling was in its early stages I recall 10 announcing that TenHD and Seven announced 7HD 1 week later and launched it 2 months before TenHD so they could say they were 1st. Glad Nine turned it on them and I hope Nine3 comes out before the pretty lame “mate”.

As for the figures, I actually said last week that 7 are scared of losing to Nine in demos so they launched what was plan B for there original multi channel in the hope of gaining those demos. They were hit hard by MasterChef. I also predict that The X factor won’t do well in demos, like AGT. It’s gonna be going head to Head with JMC and 2.5Men on Monday, that’s 1 though as slot for demos.

At the end of the day, this does mean more channels for us and hopefully more choice on Free TV so I'm not gonna complain

Yeah that is true and something i agree on. The more the better. I think though that Nine's 2nd channel will be a bit like Seven's first.

I do disagree with you about X Factor and the demo's though. X Factor is aimed at the younger audience compared to AGT so i think that it will do well in that regard.

If Nine really thought that 7TWO was not the success that GO! was; and then continue to elaborate on that fact in different ways with different wording as shown, then obviously they would not be making such ridiculous statements. Reality is 7TWO hasn't done too bad at all; and even though I sporadically check the ratings more than I used to, 7TWO has been most of the time higher than GO!.

Can't argue , at least with 7TWO there is some decent stuff half the time and half the time the schedule doesn't change on a weekly basis like GO! has done in the past few months.

7two to me feels like more an extension of the normal seven, just expanding on lifestyle,british mysterious and sitcoms.

According to the AFR (Australian Financial Review) Nine are going with a female skewed channel, with possible time-shifts of some Nine programs. (e.g I would reckon The View, Ellen DeGeneres and some other soapy, gets a time-shift on this channel). Not sure if it's actually true but it was posted in the AFR, it probably is. What does everyone think of that?